Mr. Saturday Night

I could title this post "It's Saturday night, you dork" for a rookie mistake I made. Now, this was not the end of the world, and I realized the mistake before my flag even hit the ground, but it was one of those high school vs college rule, brain-fart moments.

The play in question transpired sometime in the second quarter. Recall, I work at the umpire position and generally have a starting position seven to eight yards off the line of scrimmage. Why is this relevant? I threw a flag for a block below the waist that occurred behind me. Confused? Let's review.

First, block below the waist is another example of how crazy the college rule book is laid out. One simple rule: Blocking below the waist is permitted except as follows: (and what follows is an entire page of exceptions). I will spare you reading all the exceptions, but the exception that applies to this situation has to do with players who are not on the line-of-scrimmage in the blocking zone. What is the blocking zone (BZ)? You'll need to draw a picture.

The description of the BZ: The BZ is a rectangle centered on the snapper and extending five yards laterally and three yards longitudinally in each direction. The blocking zone disintegrates when the ball leaves the zone.

Ok, back to blocking below the waist. If a player is within the BZ and on the line of scrimmage, they can block below the waist anywhere on the field. Simple. Actually, all players can block below the waist (because it is permitted); however, some players are limited as to when and where they can use this blocking technique.

The restrictions apply to players who are outside the BZ (think, the wing back or a wide receiver), or for players who are within the BZ, but not on the line of scrimmage (think, a running back). They are prohibited from blocking below the waist toward the original position of the ball in or behind the neutral zone and within 10 yards beyond the neutral zone.

So, take that picture of the 5 x 3 rectangle I asked you to draw and add another 7 x7 yard box on the defensive side. Put a dot seven yards in the middle and this is where I am.

Now when I say the block in the back occurred behind me the questions is -- did the block occur within this 10 yard zone by a player under restriction? Heck if I know about the restricted player part, but odds are the foul occured outside the zone and thus would not be a foul... at least on Saturday.

During a high school game, this would be a foul, no matter what. On Saturday, it depends. I threw the flag because because my high school red flag went up.

I had not games on 9/18, but I did have a college game on Saturday 9/19 which pitted the 4th and 5th ranked teams in the State. It lived-up to the hype.

Phantom of the Fouls

All three games were close fought contests and were filled with drama - often caused by the coaches rather than the action on the field. Some coaches perpetually declare their ignorance each time they open their mouth. Sometimes I just want to tell them to shut the $%#& up.

JV Game

The newest version of the sideline warning violation we discussed last week came into play again. When I tossed the flag the loud-mouth coach thinks it for some phantom foul he sees on the field. He saw a lot of phantom fouls by the way. When I tell him it is a sideline warning on his team he shouts, "on who?" When the play ends I say, "look where you are standing." He babbles something incoherent. Whatever coach just follow the rule and I won't be 'killing you' anymore. I heard that a lot -- you're killing me! But, now he's all over his team and assistant coaches yelling, "get back".

With the clock stopped and eight seconds remaining in the 2nd quarter, loud-mouth tells me he wants to take a timeout after this play. Ok, just say it loud so I can hear it - like that will be a problem. The play runs, I hear "timeout" and I quickly stop the clock. After about 20 seconds he says, "why did you call timeout?" So, now you are a loud-mouth schizo? "Why would I do that with two seconds left?" Cuz you're nuts?

Later in the 3rd quarter we were down by the 10 yard line he gets bent all out of shape because he wanted to talk to the White Hat about something. I never heard him ask. He says in an over-the-top sarcastic way, "thanks for listening". I was waiting for the expletive so I could nail him for this too. But it never came. Damn.

One of the phantom fouls that was killing him was something that resembled a block in the back. What is was, was a legal block that looked bad. He says, "that was Clipping, you have to call that." Now, when someone says 'hey, that was clipping' this means they are ignorant.

Clipping is defined as "a block against an opponent when the initial contact is from behind, at or below the waist, and not against a player who is the runner (ball carrier) or pretending to be the runner." (this NOT logic is not a typo. Welcome to the world of rule book interpretations.)

Please, tell me, when was the last time saw clipping or heard this foul reported during any game you've seen on TV? You'll see several blocks in the back during a game, but never clipping.

Part 2 of this relates to something called the free-blocking zone. In this section of the book it states: A player shall not clip or block an opponent in the back EXCEPT: a) in the free-blocking zone.

Now, the free-blocking zone is entire topic in itself, but my point is for Clipping to be called it has to be, more or less, in the open field. This never happens. I don't recall ever throwing a Clipping penalty.

I see Clipping being attempted within the free-blocking zone, but players usually fail in the attempt because they are pursuing the intended victim. Often the offensive guard is pulling and the defender is trying to take him out from behind. Rarely, the defender will beat the guard and the guard goes low on the defender when he passes by him. Not clipping if in the zone.

But why should I expect a guy whose job it is to teach players how to play game to actually understand the rules?

The score was tied 0-0 at halftime and ended up 7-6 in favor of the loud-mouth.

In the Varsity game... we had a horse collar tackle, a player ejection, three sideline warnings (two by me), and illegal touching, and an illegal game ball. Stay tuned.